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Article published In:
Linguistics in the Netherlands 2022
Edited by Jorrig Vogels and Sterre Leufkens
[Linguistics in the Netherlands 39] 2022
► pp. 240–262

A nanosyntactic approach to Dutch deadjectival verbs

| KU Leuven
| CNRS/LLF/Université Paris Cité
| Masaryk University

There are three ways of deriving verbs in Dutch: through zero marking, through suffixation, and through prefixation. We focus on prefixed deadjectival verbs, contrasting two views. According to the first view, prefixed verbs are left-headed: the prefix is responsible for the change in category, i.e. [V ver [A breed]]. The second view holds that prefixed verbs are right-headed, and involve a zero verbalizing suffix, i.e. [V ver [V [A breed] ∅]]. We argue in this paper for a mixed, nanosyntactic, approach. We adopt Ramchand’s (2008) decomposition of the verb and argue that the prefix spells out part of the verbal structure and the verbal root spells out another part.

Keywords: deadjectival verbs, change-of-state verbs, causative-inchoative alternation, nanosyntax, phrasal spellout
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background: Derived verbs in Dutch
    • 2.1Deriving Dutch verbs
    • 2.2Prefixed verbs and Right-Hand Head Rule
    • 2.3Resultative semantics
    • 2.4The inchoative-causative ambiguity
  • 3.Ingredients for the analysis
    • 3.1Phrasal spellout and Nanosyntax
    • 3.2Decomposing the verb
  • 4.The account
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at [email protected].

Published online: 4 November 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/avt.00072.wyn
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